Election Integrity Commission Meets at the White House

Pence, who chairs the commission, said it “has no preconceived notions or preordained results” and will work to “enhance the American people’s confidence in our electoral system”.

Trump convened the commission after alleging that voter fraud cost him the popular vote.

Following a claim by President Trump that 3-5 million people may have voted illegally, the group was formed to investigate this concern.

Past studies have found voter fraud to be extremely rare. ‘Most of them have really done brilliantly and we appreciate it. But no one who’s spoken, including the president, has questioned the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2016 election. “[.] The commission is to look at the facts as they are and go where the facts lead us on voter fraud”.

Already the target of multiple lawsuits and widespread bipartisan criticism on the state level, the commission is holding its first public meeting today at the White House.

The data requested by Kobach, Names, The social security numbers, addresses, birthdays, political affiliation, beliefs and election history.

State voter rolls are filled with duplicate, erroneous and outdated registrations, argued commission member Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Numerous states that refused to fully comply with the controversial commission’s request for a swath of information on voter profiles are barred by their state laws from doing so. That system allows states to compare one set of voter data to another – between states – and then purge voters who they believe are double-registered.

Trump said, “If any state does not want to share this information, one has to wonder what they are anxious about, and I ask the Vice President, and I ask the commission what are they anxious about? There’s something, there always is”, he said.

Trump said more than 30 states have cooperated with requests to share data with the commission. “We can’t let that happen”, he said.

Among the loudest critics is the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which says Kobach wants to institute a national system like Crosscheck.

The signers specifically alleged that Kobach’s actions violate the Hatch Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, raising concerns about the vice chairman’s “position on the commission, his actions to date and several conflicts of interest”. Both groups were seeking to block the commission’s meetings, claiming it had violated federal rules about public notification and participation.

But even before its first convening, the election commission faced resistance.

Representatives for the commission did not immediately return a request for comment. Minutes after Vice President Pence solemnly declared that the group would have “no preconceived notions” about its work, Trump sauntered to the podium and yelled about the urgent need to end illegal voting by “non-citizens or the deceased”, which, for the millionth time, is a risky, delusional conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact.